Marriage: Fags Will Ruin It by... Ruining It!

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Body: Ske(le)pticism

Since I've known there were girls at high school who actually liked me besides my girlfriend (and because the person who told me that refuses to elaborate on what exactly it was that made them like me, which make me mad, like this:  >:O  ), I've thought about how my body looks, and I'm gonna give my personal evaluation here. Keep these things in mind as you read that:

• I have no intention of changing my diet or starting to exercise to improve my body
• I do not, and will not, drastically alter my appearance to impress anyone, including women
• And, as far as I'm concerned, if someone truly loves me, my looks will not take precedent

Let's start at the top and work our way down. I'll avoid rating using a numerical scale to refrain from oversimplifying things.

Head and Face

This thing is all over the joint, man. Starting with my hair, I actually like it the way it is. I'm no hair stylist, but I like my hair to be an average kinda length like it is now. Too short and it's alienating, too long and it gets in my face and causes more breakouts on my forehead, not to mention how messy it is.

My facial hair is nothing short of inconsistent. I'd rather just not have it. I originally wanted to have a five-o'clock shadow, but I really think I look better clean shaven. Fucking useless hair :P

My eyebrow—well, that's the problem: there's just one. I don't know where the tweezers are, but as soon as I find 'em, this sonofabitch is gonna be his own next door neighbour :P From a distance, you can't really notice, but the closer I get to the mirror, the more likely I am to put my finger over the top of my nose so I can pretend those follicles aren't there.

My eyes are fine. Gud size, gud colour, not too close together, not too far apart—not much to say, really.

Sometimes, I think my ears are a little big for my head, but oh well. They're not too bad.

Mah nose is just mah nose. No complaints. The only improvement I can think of would be to get the congestion out of it (and all my other sinuses).

My mouth is all sorts of craptastic :P  First off, my upper front teeth are out of place—not all bent in different directions, just in this bell curve due to me sucking my thumb as a kid. I hated the orthodontic stuff they gave me to fix it, but now I look at it and kinda want it fix'd. I want them straight because of the look, of course (I hate photos where I'm grinning because I always look like a retard :P),but also because my tongue barely reaches the front of my teeth, and that can make it hard to annunciate words. I also have ankyloglossia (tongue is attached to the bottom of my mouth), which (a) makes it even harder to articulate things, (b) makes it harder to kiss properly, and (c) makes my tongue look like a butt crack. Add to that what it allows me to say, and one must come to the conclusion that my tongue is a complete asshole :P

The skin on my face has pimples all over it, which is kinda saddening. From a distance, it doesn't look too bad, but up close, I'm not too fond of it. There's a general redness to my face which always seems to be there (almost certainly due to the way I eat), and that I can deal with, but I hate it when I get these bulges of pus shaped like baseball mounds—they really suck >.<  It's not so much the look I detest as it is the pain when I have to scratch near them or when I shave over them. I'd like them to go to alleviate both the cosmetic and the physical aches which they bring.

Torso & Upper Ligaments

My shoulders are just... there. Nothing much to mention, apart from the fact they have started to breakout too. My skin clings to my clavicle, making my skinniness super apparent to anyone who notices.

My arms are k, for someone my size, at least. They can make me feel inferior cos there's almost no trace of muscle (seeing shirtless guys is just... *snif*), but on my own, I don't think they look that bad. My arms aren't hairy like my legs are, which seems inconsistent, but I think my arms would need to be bigger for the hair to look suitable. I think hairy stick-figure arms would look a bit wild :P

From a distance, my chest is an area I'm not displeased with. We've had a few hot days lately, meaning I've been at home shirtless (I would apologise for the image but that defeats the purpose of this exploration :P), and I've noticed myself turning to my mirror when sitting down and going "That's not too bad. You might be small and devoid of muscle, but you're not fat, you're not malapportioned, your skin tone is pretty consistent... it's k :)". I really don't know if any woman on this planet would find my chest attractive (I find it pretty hard to believe, and evidence is yet to surface :P), but I don't think it's that unattractive either. When you get up close, you'll see small pimples and a slight redness on my upper chest due to the breakouts spreading downwards, but I'm sure a bit of acne cream can clear that up.

My back is in much the same regard: not bad, just alright. Pimples can be found on the upper portions, but, as I've said, they're not beyond removal.

There is almost no hair on my chest or my back, either. Again, I think my body's nature as 'small' distances me from a need for chest hair. And I've heard nothing good about back hair, nothing at all. One of the boys who lives next door (who's around my age) has back hair, and it's not exactly flattering :P  I do have a little hair on my chest: some just under my belly button, and some coming out of my nipples. No joke, I'm serious: there are hairs growing out of both my nipples. They look and feel more like pubic hairs, being thicker and stiffer than the regular hairs on my body, but just... why? Why do they need to be there? They're like these nonconformist follicles that decided to squat there one time, then found out they liked it there and never found the will to move. I would just pluck 'em out, but it's my nipple, man... it's sensitive :P

...I seriously hope the first girl to see me naked doesn't freak the fuck out when she sees those...

Pelvis & Lower Ligaments

My hips are bony, probably one of the boniest parts of my body. I've never really known what the male pelvis is supposed to look like, though. I look at guys in porn videos, or who have loose pants on (for research purposes >.<) and go "...that just looks fuckin' weird, man." Toned guys seem to have this diagonal bulge on either side of their pelvis that practically points towards their cock—that has to be one of the ugliest things I've ever seen in my life.  The female pelvis is all kinds of awesome, given it's a size I can appreciate; but the male pelvis... I'ma just savour my ignorance :P

My penis is just average. I've measured him: his length and girth while erect line up almost perfectly with the numbers. I'm fine with that :)  I have phimosis, which means I can't pull my foreskin down along my shaft past the head of my cock, but some steroid cream can fix that if it becomes an issue. I don't shave my pubic hair off, but I might if I'm in a relationship where the girl would prefer it. I'd certainly prefer a shaved pussy (just going off what I've seen), so it's only fair for me to be willing to do the same for them if they want it. I must say, though, as weird as this sounds, there are little curls down there that can be fun to twirl around my finger. I keep it clean, so while I think it's a little strange, I don't think it's unclean to play with my pubes. They do make it harder to scratch my crotch, though, so their removal would be beneficial.

My legs are also rather skinny, and I'm not fond of my legs being exposed, especially my upper legs. I almost never wore my senior high school shorts for this reason: at least when my legs were covered, I could give the illusion they didn't look like chicken legs :P  I've since become more comfortable with exposing them—it's not like I've ever had some chronic fear of judgement from people seeing my legs—but I'm not really all that thrilled with the way they look. At least they've got a good amount of hair on them to make them look a little more normal :P

My feet aren't all that special. I like the fact that my big toe is longer than my second toe—not that I'd give that much of a fuck about the size of someone's toes, but having the toes all end in a nice diagonal line looks better to me, rather than having the second toe jut out and ruin the pattern. I've been told I have biggish feet, at least considering my height. I dunno how true that is, but I guess it's just a matter of opinion. Nothing to complain about, though :)



So yeah, that's my body. I thought about doing a similar thing where I'd describe the physical traits I like in girls, but, to be honest, I can't pinpoint many consistencies with what I'm into. Some girls I've liked had a bigger build with meat on their bones; others were petite and skinny, almost nothing of them. Some of them had big boobs, others had smaller ones—some of them I didn't even care. Some of them had legs I could look at all day, others drew me more with their eyes than anything else. It's all over the place. I think I take girls as they come rather than starting with physical prerequisites and using them to determine how attracted I am to their body.

It would also help to have a girl I'm physically infatuated with so I could have something to go off :P

Emergency: Where Be Dat Amberlamps :|

I've wondered for a while now how I'd react if my mum came to me in pain and asked me to call an ambulance. Would I panic? Would I hesitate to pick up the phone, or follow any of my mother's instructions? Would I stammer on the phone? Would I just lose my shit? I didn't know, and I didn't want to find out.

I have since found out :P

Monday night, 4 am. I was just messing around on my computer, playing games with online friends overseas (my sleep's all out of whack), when I heard my mum get up. As she slowly walked towards my room, she said "Call an ambulance", mentioning how it was getting difficult for her to breathe. I was obviously worried, but I didn't freak out—I just left my computer, went to the phone, and dialled 000. My mum sat down on the lounge as I made the call, and she had her hand over her upper chest, very aware of her breathing. The operator said 'Police, fire or ambulance?' and I asked for the ambulance. As they patched me through, I kept my eye on my mum to make sure nothing sudden happened while my attention was elsewhere.

After being connected, they asked me for our address and phone number, then what the problem was. We went through a bunch of questions about my mum's history, and they told me to stay with her as we waited for the ambulance, which was on its way. They also said to call back if the problem worsened. My mum said it was starting to hurt when she breathed, so I called them back to tell them that. Thankfully, that wasn't a critical development, so they just reassured me that the ambulance was on its way—according to them, it was about to turn into our street.

I tried to think of everything that I'd need to do to prepare for their arrival: turning the outside lights on, unlocking the door, keeping watch out the front to know when they arrived and to indicate to them that they'd found the right place. I bounced between my mother and the front door, checking on her and then on the ambulance. I heard no sirens and saw no flashing lights, not for a while. I was getting more and more concerned, but still remained confident they'd get here eventually. Mum's condition hadn't changed during this time.

They then rang the phone and said "We're out the front, but there's a fence and a gate with a padlock." Our house has neither a front fence nor any padlocked gate :P  I did actually know where they were—they were on the street right behind ours, near a chain link fence I have to walk past to get to uni—but those streets don't have similar names, so how they got lost I don't know. Surely, if the street you're on has a different name to the one you were told to go to, you'd assume you're at the wrong house. My mother's life was in the hands of people who couldn't read a map :P  I should also mention that the people who called to tell us where the ambulance was asked if I could "get [my] wife to go out the front and let [them] in". My wife? Since when did I sound old enough to be married? o.O

They quickly came round to the right place, though. They brought bags of supplies and small equipment inside to where my mum was seated. The paramedics weren't rushing, so while I was certainly tense, I wasn't worried that what my mum was going through was going to kill her or do significant long-term harm. The paramedics took out a breathing apparatus and put it around her face, then they started to ask her more questions about how she was feeling and her medical history. When asked if my mum had any lung problems, she said she had emphysema. I was like "Oh noes... that's that disease they talk about in the government ads about what smoking does to you... hhhheeeeyyy, she told me she had a life threatening disease, but not that it was fuckin' emphysema! >.<"  The more you know :P

I watched them administer things and keep asking her more questions, wondering if they'd just patch her up and leave or if she'd have to go to hospital. My mum looked at me as though she was about to cry, reaching for my hand so she could hold it. Those ads I mentioned earlier where they're all like "Don't smoke; it's bad" and they show people in hospital with masks on 'em and tubes coming out of 'em, they're nothing compared to seeing someone in front of you looking at you as if to say "I'm so sorry you had to witness this." At this stage, I didn't really know if it was the emphysema causing all this to happen, but it was my best guess.

They asked if I wanted to come up to the hospital with my mum or come up later on, and I decided to go in the ambulance. I didn't want to hold them up, so I just went in my pyjamas, grabbing my phone, wallet and keys on the way out. I went up to the bed they'd put my mum in, and I held her hand again just before they put the bed in the back of the ambulance. I wondered if they'd stop me from doing that cos it might fuck with her heart rate or mess with the equipment (you never know, right?), but there wasn't a problem. I got in the front passenger seat and the driver talked to me a little while we went. He asked if I was on school holidays—I'm like "...I'm on uni holidays..."  On the phone, I'm old enough to be married; in the flesh, I'm not even old enough to be out of high school. What the fuck is going on here :P  I told the driver how while I did know my mum had issues with her lungs, I didn't know she had emphysema; he said that it wouldn't have made much difference either way because the disease takes its toll whether you're informed of its name & symptoms or not. And he's right: it's not gonna wait there all like "Has she told him yet? Does he know we're here? Maybe I should remind her again... I think he should know before we start on her, I really do."

We got to the hospital and they took us inside. I stood there in my pyjamas, waiting to be taken to another room or something. Given that I've appeared on stage in numbers including a rastafarian, a diaper, and pink pants with a matching fairy hat, pyjamas is nothin', so that wasn't bothering me at all. Even the fact my mum was here wasn't getting to me too much. She wasn't in a critical condition, they weren't rushing her from place to place—there was no sense of urgency whatsoever, so while it was tense, I was still calm.

We finally went to casualty, where a nurse spoke to my mum and asked her some questions. They were really dumb questions: 'Where are you?' 'What day is it?' 'What year is it?' I'm like "...does emphysema induce amnesia or something?" Makes me wanna admit myself to hospital just so when they ask those questions, I can be all like "It's 2097, and I'm in a realm beyond the fourth dimension. Computers are people, and people are robots. Ninjas are also robots. Corporations are the big smiley in the sky. LICK MY LOLLIPOP for your destiny awaits! And when Jesus returns, hair will be combed and Maltesers will be had, HAD I say! :D".

That's something else I wanna quickly mention: the hospital, as morbid a place as it can be, is a great place for comic material. I told my mum a few jokes during the ordeal, and that kept her smiley. Even the nurses had a dark sense of humour—one of them asked for a mucus sample, and asked mum to 'hock up a big one, a big yellowey-greeney one, all icky and congested'. They'd have to have that kind of attitude to work in that place, though. I was anxious to write material down, hoping I could turn my phone back on, having turned it off before I got in the ambulance in case it messed with the equipment. Apparently, you can have your phone on in the hospital now, so once I found that out, I turned that sucker on and typed like I've never typed before :P

They hooked up some more things to my mum (heart rate monitor, nasal cannula), and they drew some blood. Early on, they took her for a test of some kind, but that was over fairly quickly. The worst of it was over at that point, so I just waited with my mum for a few hours, getting her cups of water to prevent her legs from cramping, as well as talking to her to keep her company. I eventually had to go home to lock the house up properly (I'd left a window open and neglected to turn the alarm on... oops :P), get changed into daytime clothes, and to have some noms. I walked home cos I didn't feel like calling a cab—for a guy who looks fourteen and has the voice of a middle aged man, walking home from the hospital in thongs and pyjamas, I was getting relatively few funny looks. Thanks, local peeps, for not being judgemental assholes :) I packed my laptop and my iPod too so I wouldn't be totally bored if my mum decided to take a nap, and so I could get some writing done.

I took a cab back and went back to my mum in casualty. She looked a little better, the pain having subsided a little. She could manage breathing without the nasal cannula, which was a good improvement; and she'd also had some tests and x-rays done. I was wondering at this point how long she'd have to stay here, hoping she wouldn't have to stay overnight, for both our sakes (though I did bring chargers for my stuff, you know, in case of a real emergency), but we didn't know when the tests would be analysed.

Another nurse came over to draw more blood. She was super cute and looked heaps like the girlfriend of a friend of mine, but that's... besides the point >.> (she was probably a few years my elder anyway by the look of her :P). She had to draw blood three times, twice from my mum's arteries, which is extremely painful. It later turned out they never needed to draw that blood. Damn it, cute nurse, you didn't sound silly when you came over and spoke to us, so what the fuck, man >.<

My mum tried to get some sleep, but she kept getting cramps in her feet. I couldn't tell you how many times I got up to refill mum's little styrofoam cup with water, but it didn't make too much difference (she actually started to feel sick from having too much water :P). I managed to get a fair bit of writing done (wrote my monologue for the RAW comedy competition, yyyaaayyy ^_^), and listened to some George Carlin to ease my tension (his bit on the Ronald Reagan administration and the right wing never fails to make me chuckle).

I eventually had to go home again to get some sleep, cos I was dead tired after being up for so long. I walked home (which did nothing but wake me up... stupid idea :P), took off all my clothes (summer in this country... uuuggghhh) and collapsed on my bed. Had a few hours sleep, then had a phone call interrupt my slumber. Thankfully, it was my mum saying she'd been discharged, meaning she'd just need me to bring up some clothes and shoes for her to wear home. I walked back (again, moronic decision given how fucking hot it was -_-), mum got ready, and we caught a cab home. It was finally over.

I think I handled the whole thing pretty well. I never panicked, I never lost control, and I didn't crumble under the pressure—I just did what needed to be done. I'll have to remember to lock all the windows and turn the alarm on next time (which hopefully won't happen :P), but that's no biggie. My mum's gonna prepare a bag with some basic supplies such that if this does happen again, I just go get that bag, get my things, and get in the ambulance. Now that it's happened, it won't be difficult to go through it again, but watching my mum in such distress will never be comfortable.

It also means the ambulance people should have less trouble finding our house next time :P

Girls: Over and Over and Over and Over and Over...

I don't know why, but I can't stop listening to this song:

And it's not just cos the video has bewbs in it... I pwomise... >.>

Speaking of bewbs women, relationships have been on my mind a lot lately. The thoughts just never seem to go aawwwwaaaayyyyyyy. I know it's something I'm prone to think about a lot, but goddamn, I've been on overload lately with all the wayward desires.

Everything else I do seems to be reminding me of it, too. I was watching the fifth season of Futurama this week, and at least three or four of the episodes have dating or relationships as a key plot device. It's like "come on, give me a brreeaaakkkk >.<". That's not to mention how much I can identify with Fry, being a derp and never succeeding at stuff (and, not that I'm one to fantasise about cartoon characters, but Leela is pretty hot :P). A friend of mine has started going out with somebody, and at a recent outing, another friend mentioned how much happier he looked—it's definitely noticeable. This is the same guy who, months ago, would joke to his friends about wanting to kill himself, this suicidal mindset not as much a charade as one might like it to be; but now, you can't wipe the smile off his face. And good for him: he's improved his social life tremendously, and it goes to show.

Part of this whole thing is having nowhere to focus all these feelings—there are no girls I have feelings for, and opportunities to meet any are thin on the ground. I went to my mother's boyfriend's daughter's eighteenth birthday dinner on Saturday night (not that I'm mad keen on my mum getting married, but at least then I could call this girl my sister-in-law instead of that mess :P), and was told there would be plenty of girls there, seeing as the girl invited lots of her friends. I'm like "Cool :)", so I got ready with the thought in my head that maybe I'd get to meet someone. Maybe there'd be no one suitable, maybe they'd all be taken, maybe they'd all be retarded—but maybe I'll be lucky. Who knows, right? It wasn't like all I was thinking about was the chicks that'd be there, but I did see it as an opportunity nonetheless.

So we get there before everyone else, and find that there are two long tables: one for the friends and one for the family. My mum thought it was one table for the younger ones and the other for the parents and relatives, but the birthday girl had invited enough friends to fill that table, so all the family, regardless of age, sat on one table. Slowly but surely, people arrive, and girls are now there to be seen. What was weird was that I didn't even want to look at the girls that were there; even that was scary. I'm like "I'm that weird skinny guy who they've never seen or met before, that guy whose connection to the celebrant you can't quite pinpoint, so, to these people, I look enough like a weirdo as it is. Best to keep your head down and keep playing on your phone" ...cos that totally helps me not look fuckin' weird :P

They ate and drank for ages, or at least it felt like ages—not much to do on your phone when you don't have that many apps installed and the 3G doesn't quite work yet :P  I sat not facing the friends table (not my choice), so it took a while for me to actually see what who was there. There were a few who looked kinda pretty, but none that really drew me. Closest they got was a tall redhead (the fuck is it with me and redheads, man :P), but in the end, it was just 'meh'.

I never quite had it in me to talk to them, and I'll be the first to admit that talking to strangers frightens me worse than almost anything else, but, in all honesty, I didn't want to talk to these people. They were loud and obnoxious, and they sounded like they were talking about silly things that I'd take no interest in. I mean, the birthday girl's boyfriend was her school's captain: we're talking the fucking popular group here, those people :P  I honestly don't think I would have gotten along with any of them. And they all went to a high school called Holy Spirit College—that restaurant was just a big box of assorted Catholics, and they all had alcohol in them, so I probably wouldn't have liked to om-nom any of 'em :P  I could be wrong there—obviously, their school being religious doesn't mean they all are personally, nor does it automatically determine their attitudes to things—but the chances of me meeting someone I can be open with was lower at this event cos we probably would have disagreed on some pretty important things. I can't expect any girl I'm interested in to mirror my beliefs verbatim, but the bitch can't be superstitious, or we just aren't gonna get along :P  There was a point where there were a few of them sitting at a table just talking with spare seats near them, so it's not like there weren't any opportunities, but I just wasn't feeling it that night. Should I have talked to them even though I didn't want to? I don't think there's much point. Oh well, just gotta wait a little longer, I guess.

I should also mention I had my fly open until I sat down at the table... it's always something, isn't it. Last time that happened, I was at my grandmother's funeral :P

The other problem here is that I don't talk to friends about this stuff. I don't have those deep and meaningful conversations I've heard so much about where you delve into these kinds of things. I'm not even sure I have a connection with any friend of mine that would allow for such a thing, lol. Since 2010, I've always used to have one friend I could count on to talk with about anything. From the start of 2010 to the middle, it was a girl in my group who was also in my Business Studies class who I got to know her quite well, becoming good friends; for the rest of Year 11, it was my girlfriend; at the beginning of 2011, after the breakup, it was a closer male friend of mine who did Drama with me; and from around midway through 2011 until now, it's been a girl I hung out with in the library while I was down and out. She's been pretty much the only person I've talked to about really personal stuff cos she's the only one I've kept in contact with, hence being the only person who I still have confidence in, the only person who I think knows me well enough to relate to me. Thing is, she's overseas now, so I'm keeping it bottled up, which isn't good.

I know I have a friend who reads this blog (sometimes I see it as a way I can talk to her at her leisure, her choosing to respond only if she wants to—which I appreciate, by the way :] ), and I know she's said that if I wanna talk about stuff, she's there and has no issue with it. I don't know if I have a close enough connection with her for such a conversation to work, though, nor do I know if she's willing to have the same level of trust in me as I would her. There aren't any other people I can think of, though. This is another thing I'll get if I meet moar people: I'll be able to spread my complaining around rather than focusing it all on one unlucky person :P

My desires are getting really strong now. I'm not feeling rapey or anything :P  But goddamn do I want a girl to be with. I cannot stop think about cuddling. I've thought about that one act so many times, it's insane. I want to wrap my arms around a girl's nice round tummy and never let go. I want to feel the surge in my pelvis as my front connects with her back, even if I have to cross my legs to prevent creeping her out via poking my dick into her butt (happened all the time when cuddling my ex, soooo annoying >.<). I want to hold a girl close, so tightly, tighter than I ever have. I tried cuddling my pillow, but it's not the same—not just in terms of the shape and feel, but because it's not a sentient person who wants my affection. That connection is important. Desperation is evidently taking hold :P

I don't know what it is about having physical contact with a girl's tummy that draws me so much, but I just like it and want to touch it. Is it something to do with the womb? Is there some subconscious primordial desire at work here? Am I wanting to put stuff in that chasm that I really should hold off on for now?

And I want that girl to cuddle me too. I want that validation and acceptance, that gesture that says "I love you and I don't want you to leave me. Your warmth makes me smiley so I'ma steal some. Hope that's k with you :)", cos it's more than k: it's awesome.

I wanna make out, too. I wanna slip my tongue in a girl's mouth, close my eyes, and just go nuts. And I don't know why, but there is not one part of a girl's body I don't wanna kiss (except maybe her underarms, and her butthole... but if it's super clean and it turns her on, I'll do it—why not? ...don't fucking look at me like that, goddamnit :P).

And every time I lay down on my bed, I want a woman to be beside me. This is a more recent thing, but I want to lay next to a girl, even just to talk and be with her. It's someone who's there for me, someone who likes me being there for them, someone I can wake up next to and feel happy about being with. It's a comfort thing, I guess.

The sex I've talked about before, but while I know I'll probably be a little frightened when I finally get to do it, and I'm aware of how it won't be this amazing experience where they do nothing but moan and say sexy things, never in any pain or discomfort due to my sexual ignorance, where I make them cum (like that's gonna happen on my first go, if ever, lol), I still want it more than ever. I wanna go all the way. I want to see that look on her face that says "God, baby, I want you to fuck me. Satisfy me. Let me make you cum. I want it just as bad as you." Nothing gets me off like mutual pleasure.

And none of that can really happen without a relationship, without strong feelings in my mind and my heart, and that's what I want more than anything else right now: someone to like, maybe even love. Someone to long for, to think about, to dream about, to put butterflies in my stomach, to give me something to look forward to every day—that's the staple for me. That alone will fulfil me a great deal. I don't know where I'm gonna meet someone I'm inclined to talk to, but I guess I just have to keep waiting.

Even someone with whom I have a really good friendship and can talk to about anything, even that would be pretty sweet right now. It's not as if I don't have people I can talk to if I need to, but I'm talking about that friendship that you can count on for anything, that person you trust more than anyone else in the world, that person you tell anything and everything to, that kind of thing. That wouldn't necessarily be my girlfriend—as a matter of fact, it'd almost certainly end up being someone else, someone I'd be close to for far longer than your average relationship. I used to have really good connections with people from school, but they've drifted, both physically and socially, so I think it'll have to be someone new. Something else I'll have to wait for, but it'll be worth the wait.

The wait's half the fun, too, but the wait is definitely more fun when there's a girl to actually chase :P

Rape: >.<

I wanted to make an entry on this real quick—it's the story of the Steubenville football team rape allegations. To sum it up, several members of said football team have been accused of raping a sixteen-year-old girl. They found her drunk at a party, spiked her drink to knock her unconscious, and proceeded not only to rape her, but to take her to other parties in the area (while she was still unconscious) and continue to rape her. It's pretty intense stuff:

A breakdown of the whole incident, including the back-story.

Probably one of the most disturbing videos I've seen in a while (and I am far from easily disturbed):

(This video proves this man a rapist on at least two counts: one for the poor girl, and one for the simile, both of whom were used and abused to almost no end during the course of this event).

Now, I'm no expert on morality, and I've made sexual mistakes of my own before, but my mistakes don't come near what these boys did. This kind of shit is just so far beyond the pale that I wonder how such a mindset could ever come to be—that permission is not required for sexual activity, that it doesn't count as rape if she's unconscious (and that drugging her in the first place is somehow acceptable), that a girl is a portable vagina you can bring to parties and share with your friends. Seriously: how in the fuck does that happen? What person would condition someone to believe they're entitled do commit such actions? It's not a rhetorical question; what's the deal here? I mean, there were girls at my high school who I wanted to fuck, who I really really wanted to fuck, but rape never even crossed my fucking mind! The idea of sex without their consent wasn't even on the table, nor has it ever been on the table, nor will it ever be on the table—even the table knows better than that! I don't know anyone I could even fathom raping somebody. This psychopathy is ingrained in these boys' heads; they've been taught to think this way.

It reminds me of articles I've read about university and college party life where this same mentality is actually rather prevalent, far more than one might imagine. Now, I can't speak from personal experience cos I'm not invited to parties, but time and time again have I read articles about girls at parties being expected to put out, men pressuring women into sex and ganging up on them to get their way, women being expected to dress a certain way to reveal a certain amount of flesh on penalty of social rejection, while others call those girls sluts for revealing too much flesh. Maybe Hopefully the culture is different at my uni, but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't. I've read about this activity going on at colleges and universities in the US, in the UK, even Australia—it's everywhere, and it's kinda scary to think about (even as someone who's part of the gender least at risk by a mile :P).

Reading about this whole culture can, at times, be a deterrent in my own head for talking to women in the first place. I've never been somewhere, checking some girl out, and thought to myself "Well, I could talk to her, but no matter how I act, she might think I'm a sexual deviant due to the high concentration of abusers among my gender, sooooo I'll just stay away and not bother her", but what if that popped into my head when I was interested in some girl at a party or something? I don't need more fucking reasons to avoid her—I have plenty of those as it is :P  I'm also not muscular, I don't have a big build, and I'm not known to be violent, so I probably won't come across as a threat anyway, but reading about these assaults can give me the false impression that, from the eyes of women, I'm walking around with a sign floating over my head that reads 'WARNING: POTENTIAL ABUSER. APPROACH WITH CAUTION.'

And again, I don't have to deal with the core symptom of this culture, which is the fear of being taken advantage of and denied the right to refusal in social and sexual situations; but even guys suffer a little in that we might be predetermined to be something we're not. I mean, you could have a kind, respectful young man who's 6'4" and likes to work out, who then approaches a girl he has his eye on somewhere. The girl is then intimidated, assuming that his respect is just a ploy to get into her pants. She might be led to think this way because she knows about these psychological anomalies that occur in the occasional male, or perhaps because she's borne witness to or been a victim of the very same attitude earlier in life. One person is prejudged and the other is frightened—that's not gud :(

This whole rape mentality is also part of the reason I want to drink or indulge in other similar substances. I fear loss of that self control that might lead me to do something I regret later on, especially if it hurts someone else. Time and time again, I've seen drunk people doing stupid shit no sober person would even consider doing—it's as if they don't even want the ability to properly analyse situations and act rationally. I don't really trust myself as it is, and you want to impair my decision-making even more? No way, man. I don't want to stumble over to some chick and start acting inappropriately cos I've lost the ability to consider the consequences of my actions. I don't want to start feeling somebody up, violating them and ending up in prison, all because I decided to get wasted.

Getting back to the story at hand, I've also seen a few YouTube commenters going "Well, the victim of the rapes was drunk, so it's her fault too!" Well, that's certainly true, apart from the fact that it's not true, which invalidates the claim somewhat. If you get yourself drunk (and the girl here did get herself drunk), you're still responsible for what you decide to do, because you decided to inebriate yourself—but did the girl here decide to have her drink spiked? No. Did she decide to be carried from house to house like a living, breathing blow-up doll? No. Did she decide to have sex? No. None of that was her choice.

I can kinda see where people come from where they go "She got herself into it by getting drunk", cos she definitely took a big risk by drinking (especially considering her age and the age of those around her), but making her responsible for that assumes she's informed on the matter. She might not have had any education on alcohol at all, or have been given erroneous information from the internet or from peers. I agree, assuming for a second that she is informed, that it was a stupid decision of hers to get drunk, and that such behaviour is irresponsible. We must remember that in this age of information, it's easy to educate yourself about these matters. It's no big secret that alcohol consumption can inhibit one's ability make sound decisions and act rationally.

But none of the events of the rape itself were the fault of the victim's own inebriation; it was the fault of those taking advantage of her inebriation. A friend of hers convinced her to go to the parties where the rapists were—the victim would trust her friend to not endanger her whether she was drunk or not. That's abuse of position, as well as abuse of her drunkenness if she was already under the influence at the time of that decision. Now, we can't specify who exactly spiked her drink, and it's definitely stupid to take a drink from someone (unless it's unopened and you know full well what it is). But again, if her friend gave it to her, that's taking advantage of the victim's trust. If someone else gave it to her while she was under the influence, that's taking advantage of her drunkenness. If she took the drink while having no opportunity to learn about drink spiking and other relevant issues in the course of her life, then it's solely the fault of the drink-spiker for taking advantage of the victim's ignorance. 

If, however, the victim had been taught about drink spiking, if the person who offered her the drink wasn't someone she already trusted, if she was sober, and she still took the drink, then she is partially responsible for the part where she fell unconscious. If you're dumb enough to get wasted and make stupid decisions like that when you really know better, you walked into an obvious trap. The drink-spiker still takes the majority of the blame because they decided to attack the girl, but if you've been told that people spike drinks and that you can't be sure if drinks from strangers are spiked or not, you were given fair warning.

Anything after that, however, can't be the girl's fault in any form. Falling unconscious is, by itself, a fair consequence of taking a drink from a stranger when you know full well it could be spiked. And again, this attribution of fault assumes that she was informed on these matters beforehand, which could be untrue; and it also assumes that neither trust nor inebriation played any part in the victim's decision making pertaining to the spiked drink, which is extremely unlikely. After she's unconscious, she has no ability to make further decisions at all—the boys decided to rape her on their own, and she had no say in that matter whatsoever. If someone's unconscious at a party, then you lie them on a couch or a bed and call a fucking ambulance, follow the paramedics instructions over the phone, and also get people ask around for anyone who knows first aid or has any relevant medical knowledge. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. They knew full well what they should have done, and they didn't do it. The fact that they were coaxed into this mindset by authority figures makes me question just how responsible they are, because maybe they were indoctrinated from the get-go to think this way and were never exposed to a decent education as to how women should be treated. There was at least one guy in the video who displayed concern for the girl's condition (thank you, random boy, for maintaining the thread by which my faith in humanity hangs :P), so it's not like these boys could honestly claim they thought rape was fine, but the adults who instilled this mindset upon the boys should also be investigated and tried for their contributions.

There is, however, some justice to be had, perverted as it is. Provided these boys are convicted and sent to prison (likely, given how much coverage this is getting and how insurmountable the evidence is), we know what will happen to them in prison. The American judicial system serves no greater poetic justice than that which is delivered to a man convicted of rape or sexual assault who is sent to live in a penitentiary. These boys will know the pain of their victims in full force and on a constant basis. Is it right? Not really, because we are simply sinking to their level. But will it happen? You bet.

Part of this makes me want to go to parties to see how prevalent this attitude is here, because as dark as the subject matter is, it's still interesting to investigate. I still wonder what goes on at parties, how people act, how prevalent this behaviour is, all that stuff. I'm also curious as to how the introduction of alcohol into my system would affect my mind, but that's nowhere near enough to get me to drink it—my teetotalism remains firm. I dunno how I'd act if I saw a girl at a party who I wanted to chat up, but that's another story. Part of me wonders if I'll ever witness sexual assault at a party, maybe even having to call the police or something, but again, I can't know shit till it actually happens.

Dejection: Unjustified Fear Guaranteed Within Half an Hour, or It's Free!

Tuesday night was one of those sleepless ones where I just stayed up till morning. I started off just fucking around with my phone (Android + DualShock 3 connectivity via Bluetooth + emulators = ^_^), but eventually decided to put some music on from an album I downloaded a few weeks back. All the songs on the album are re-imagined versions of the musical compositions from Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie's Double Trouble (both the SNES and GBA versions, each with its own soundtrack), and a few of the tracks really struck me, so I usually end up putting them on single repeat for a while. Thing is, two of the songs I love on this album are depressing as all fuck, able to make me sad just through their tone. I still can't resist listening to them, but goddamn, these two in particular just breed melancholy for me:

I don't know how they turn the score for a video game into that, but they sure do manage to play with my emotions :P  I had the song on the left on repeat last night, and it brought me down pretty quick, for longer than I usually let myself down for as well.

Jumping forward to Wednesday morning, I watched this video by MrRepzion:

This made me a little uncomfortable, but it wasn't due to any fault of the video itself. Rather, it tied in with what I was thinking about while I was down and out: how I think of girls, and how my actions towards them can be interpreted.

I'll start off with the thoughts I had during the night. After I put the song on and listened to it a few times, I slowly sank inside and started moping around. The idea in my head was that I would never find someone to be with in a relationship, and that I should come to the realisation that I must rely on myself for comfort rather than someone else. This supposed need for complete and total social independence is a common side-effect of these depressive episodes—whilst reason clearly states that humans are social animals who rely on each other to survive, interaction with other humans being a need, that all goes to shit when reason takes a walk.

Those thoughts led me to conclude that I would never find a girl to be with and would remain alone forever. It didn't stem from my thought that my body and personality weren't attractive so much as it stemmed from my 'decision' to keep myself away from other people due to my apparent failures as a human being, simply skipping the step of trying to avoid inevitable failure. I curled into a ball and held myself, thinking I'd never have someone else to hold me, that no one would even want to be with me in any form. Even on a pure social level, I believed myself too ignorant to continue on, assuming women would think me to be some bumbling fool who couldn't handle himself and didn't know how to treat them. I pictured myself showing no confidence and having no emotional maturity, the woman coming to the same conclusion and leaving upon any attempt of mine to engage. These thoughts carried on for an hour or two.

I eventually turned the music off and watched some Nostalgia Critic videos; this brought me right back up. Comedy continues to rein as my yet-to-fail anti-depressant.

Now skip back to Wednesday morning, sunrise: I watch the video about nice guy syndrome. This brings back memories of Schoolies, where I had a similar attitude. I never explicitly treated the girl in question nice to with the intent of getting something in return, but I did feel as though it didn't make sense that my supposed good treatment of women in general wasn't being acknowledged and rewarded, which is ass-backwards (not to mention the fact that making sexual desires for said girl public isn't exactly treating them well, is it :P). That brought back the feelings for a short while, almost confirming that not only am I socially ignorant, but that I'm a pig too, and I couldn't treat women properly even if I tried. These thoughts didn't linger for long, but they still occurred.

On a side note, I read her entry on my entries a short while ago where she criticised what I wrote from her perspective as a feminist. I'd known it was there for ages, but only now have I read it top-to-bottom. A lot of it's exaggerated (she told me it was more of a rant than anything else), and some of it was dead wrong, ignoring other parts of the blog and misinterpreting things; but the core issue of my nice guy syndrome was, at least in the parts she quoted, undeniable. It wasn't easy to read, but I'd like to think I'm beyond that mindset now. Reading stuff like that can often make me reconsider this, making me go "damn, maybe it's so bad that I'll never escape it", but the fact of the matter is that I don't think like that anymore. The stuff on how women like men with confidence still bites, but it's fact and I need to get used to it.

Fast forward to tonight: Thursday night. Same song comes on, same thoughts flood my head—not as intense, but still lingering in my head and making me sad. This time, the thoughts leaned more towards how I'm perceived by girls in general, now coming to the conclusion that they would judge me prematurely based on either my physical appearance or what little they knew about my personality (eating habits, arrogant stage persona, lack of confidence off-stage, etc.), determining yet again that a relationship with a woman is not possible in the real world and that I should stop dreaming about it.

This time, though, I thought "Hmmm... maybe what's making me sad... is this sad music. There seems to be this thing where every time I listen to sad music, it makes me sad face. Hmmm... let's listen to a different song and see if that makes me more smiley." I changed the song, and no more than a minute later, I'm bobbing along to it and totally out of the blue, as it were.

Right, first rule for maintaining confidence in one's self: don't make one's self sad on purpose by listening to depressing music >.<

I even started to perform my own improvised monologue out loud (albeit quietly, given it's 3 am :P) where I went through this very issue verbally. I relate this predetermined social failure to an entry the aforementioned friend of mine wrote where she addressed her own appearance. She isn't having depressive episodes or anything (if she is, she isn't writing about them :P), but she has said she'd like to feel more confident with her appearance, this being one of the reasons she wants to lose weight: so she doesn't feel judged by skinny girls or feel too self-conscious going into clothing boutiques. Her reason clearly states that, no, looks aren't everything—she clearly knows this—but part of the rational behind her weight loss is increased confidence from an improved self-image.

My perspective differs from hers: while she doesn't hate her body, she thinks it could do with some improvement. On the other hand, I'm like "o.O ...wut? Skinny girls? Since when were you fat? You aren't fat; you're hot! I like the way you look now! You look awesome! Seriously! You're at the top of my scale! I can't see room for improvement! Your size is perfect, in all areas!" Granted, I don't ogle this girl cos it's been made clear she's not interested, so there's no point; and I don't fantasise about her (anymore :P) cos I don't see the point of intentional indulgence in a dream that will never come to pass. But my opinion still stands: this girl looks great to me. She looks yummy as far as I'm concerned. And it's not because I'm easily impressed; there are girls I'd classify as overweight, and there are plenty of chicks I find plain fuckin' ugly. This girl just happens to suit my physical tastes.

Is my opinion wrong? Is my scale fucked up? No—we just have differing opinions. And there is written testimony right here that there is at least one person who does find her pretty, beautiful, sexy, all dat shit. This is evidence that, while she might think she doesn't look her best, there are people who would beg to differ. Far be it from me to stop her losing weight just because I like her body—she has far more justifications that changing her appearance, and it's a good decision all-round to lead a healthier life—but what I'm trying to say is her generalising about how people might judge her body negatively is conjecture based on emotional reasoning, not a logical position with evidence to back it up (and if it is, then fuck you, norm, fuck you >.<).

And I'm not trying to be creepy; I'm trying to make a point, goddamnit :P

Now, sure, I might think of myself as an ugly, ignorant, diffident, misogynistic douchebag with the diet of an obese twelve-year-old, but that doesn't mean everyone else does! Some people might like me—I don't know that they do, but I don't necessarily know that they don't either, so I can't jump to either conclusion. And I'll put it out there: if a girl were to come up to me and say she thought I was hot, or that I turned her on, or that she liked my body in any way, part of me would be like "wwwhhhaaattt the fuck is wrong with this woman... seriously, this chick's insane... get her away from me... >.>"; but most of me would be like ":O WUT REALLY LIKE OMG why thank you :D".  I'm not gonna call them a liar and demand justification for their attraction and call them crazy for flattering me, now am I :P.  Sure, not many people might share her opinion, but fuck them: this person likes me, so that's an opportunity right there regardless. The girl might not be right for me, too—she might not be my type physically, mentally, socially, interest-wise—but that can't be determined without investigation, so it must be taken for what it is: a mere possibility.

So, I guess the second rule in maintaining confidence in one's self would be to always take the null hypothesis in these difficult scenarios. It seems best to ditch emotional reasoning and simply go "I know neither what she's gonna think of me, nor what I'm gonna think of her, nor what's gonna happen after we start talking. But I do know that not talking to her will get me nowhere, so it is more logical to instigate conversation than to avoid it". Can't get into her pants unless I ask, can I :P

I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but I seriously want this year to be different. 2012 was even worse than 2011: I gained nothing in a year when I should have made lots of gains, and it was due to unjustified fear. Getting and maintaining the confidence to enter new situations is key to turning. If I want to do any of the following things:

• Perform comedy at new venues
• Meet new people
• Enter another relationship
• Lose my virginity
• Learn to drive

—then I need the ability to do things I have not yet done, and hence the confidence to assert the fact that I simply do not know how things will turn out until they have fucking turned out :P  I don't trust myself for a second, which is the problem. I cannot hire a guy to put a gun to the back of my head and force me to do these things; if I could, I would have done that ages ago :P  Self-reliance in terms of maintaining confidence is something I need to practice, not just talk about. If something brings me down, then I must find a way to stop being down rather than indulge in the down...ness, and then I need to find a way to not be caught by the same trap again.

Now, if the girl in question would like to hit me for anything I've said here, please leave detailed instructions on how you'd like the blow to be dealt, and I shall take care of it for you. My self-reliance must begin somewhere :P